She bent toward him, as she always did when she talked earnestly, and as frankly as though she were speaking to a girl.
"Warry Raridan, it's exactly as I told you a moment ago. You've been spoiled, and it shows in a lot of ways. Why, you're positively childish!" She laughed softly. He had thrust his hands into his pockets and was feeling foolish. He wanted to make another effort to maintain his position as a serious lover, but was not equal to it. She went on, with growing kindness in her tone: "Now, I'll say to you frankly that I didn't at all like being mixed up in the Knights of Midas ball; if you had been as wise as I have always thought, you might have known it. You ought to have shown your interest in me by helping me; but you chose to take a very ungenerous and unkind attitude about it; you helped to make it harder for me than it might have been. I relied on you as an old friend, but you deserted me at your first chance to show that you really had my interests at heart. If you had cared about me, you certainly wouldn't have acted so."
"Why, Evelyn, I wouldn't hurt you for anything in the world; if I had understood—"
"But that's the trouble," she interrupted, still very patiently. She saw that she had struck the right chord in appealing to his chivalry, and in conceding as much as she had by the reference to their old comradeship. She had never liked him better than she did now; but she certainly did not love him.
She had directed the talk safely into tranquil channels, and he was growing happier, and, if he had known it, relieved besides. He wanted to be nearer to her than any one else, and he was touched by her declaration that she had needed him, and that he had failed her.
"But sometime—you will not forget—"
"Oh, sometime! we are not going to bother about that now. Just at present it's getting too cool for the open air and we must go inside."
"But is it all right? You will pardon my offenses, won't you? And you won't let any one else—"
"Oh, you must be careful, and very good," she answered lightly, and gathered up her skirts in her hand. "We must go in, and," she looked down at him, laughing, "there must be a smile on the face of the tiger!"
A fire of piñon logs, brought from the Colorado hills, blazed in the wide fireplace at the end of the hall, and Evelyn and Warry joined the circle which had formed about it.